Effectiveness of Child to Child Concept on Knowledge of Prevention of Helminthic Infestation

 In India about 30-50% of rural school children suffer from much morbidity like anemia, worm infestation etc.. The vast population in the rural area could be approached through child to child programme, for giving health education to protect against common illnesses like diarrhea, anemia, malnutrition etcⁱ.  Objectives of the study is to assess the knowledge on prevention of helminthic infestation among primary school students of rural area, to assess the effectiveness of child to child concept on prevention of helminthic infestation and to find out the association between the knowledge and selected demographic variables.  An evaluative  research approach and one group pre and post test design which is pre experimental in nature was adopted for the study.100 primary school children in 3rd and 4th standard constituting of both boys and girls were selected through random sampling technique. The instruments used were demographic proforma, knowledge questionnaire on knowledge of prevention of worm infestation. The data collection was in 2 phases, in the first phase demographic details were collected and the knowledge of children regarding worm infestation was assessed. In the second phase 10 children were selected from the study participant group, by simple random sampling method and were given health education regarding prevention of worm infestation using educational package. These children were encouraged to disseminate their knowledge about worm infestation to their class mates of 3rd and 4th standard using the flash cards and videos. A post test was conducted after 7 days using same structured questionnaire and knowledge of 100 study participants were assessed. The mean pre test knowledge was 47.56%, and mean post test knowledge was 88.7% and calculated ‘t’ value =29.78 is greater than the ttab(98)=1.982, p<0.05. There was significant association between knowledge of children and education of the mother (fishers exact value =0.00, p<0.05).. Key words: knowledge, children, primary school children, child to child programme.